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Here is a rigorous introduction to the most important and useful solution methods of various types of stochastic control problems for jump diffusions and its applications. Discussion includes the dynamic programming method and the maximum principle method, and their relationship. The text emphasises real-world applications, primarily in finance. Results are illustrated by examples, with end-of-chapter exercises including complete solutions. The 2nd edition adds a chapter on optimal control of stochastic partial differential equations driven by Lévy processes, and a new section on optimal stopping with delayed information. Basic knowledge of stochastic analysis, measure theory and partial differential equations is assumed.

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Presenting state-of-the-art methods in the area, the book begins with a presentation of weak discrete time approximations of jump-diffusion stochastic differential equations for derivatives pricing and risk measurement. Using a moving least squares reconstruction, a numerical approach is then developed that allows for the construction of arbitrage-free surfaces. Free boundary problems are considered next, with particular focus on stochastic impulse control problems that arise when the cost of control includes a fixed cost, common in financial applications. The text proceeds with the development of a fear index based on equity option surfaces, allowing for the measurement of overall fear levels in the market. The problem of American option pricing is considered next, applying simulation methods combined with regression techniques and discussing convergence properties. Changing focus to integral transform methods, a variety of option pricing problems are considered. The COS method is practically applied for the pricing of options under uncertain volatility, a method developed by the authors that relies on the dynamic programming principle and Fourier cosine series expansions. Efficient approximation methods are next developed for the application of the fast Fourier transform for option pricing under multifactor affine models with stochastic volatility and jumps. Following this, fast and accurate pricing techniques are showcased for the pricing of credit derivative contracts with discrete monitoring based on the Wiener-Hopf factorisation. With an energy theme, a recombining pentanomial lattice is developed for the pricing of gas swing contracts under regime switching dynamics. The book concludes with a linear and nonlinear review of the arbitrage-free parity theory for the CDS and bond markets.

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The subject of this book is analysis on Wiener space by means of Dirichlet forms and Malliavin calculus. There are already several literature on this topic, but this book has some different viewpoints. First the authors review the theory of Dirichlet forms, but they observe only functional analytic, potential theoretical and algebraic properties. They do not mention the relation with Markov processes or stochastic calculus as discussed in usual books (e.g. Fukushima’s book). Even on analytic properties, instead of mentioning the Beuring-Deny formula, they discuss “carré du champ” operators introduced by Meyer and Bakry very carefully. Although they discuss when this “carré du champ” operator exists in general situation, the conditions they gave are rather hard to verify, and so they verify them in the case of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator in Wiener space later. (It should be noticed that one can easily show the existence of “carré du champ” operator in this case by using Shigekawa’s H-derivative.) In the part on Malliavin calculus, the authors mainly discuss the absolute continuity of the probability law of Wiener functionals. The Dirichlet form corresponds to the first derivative only, and so it is not easy to consider higher order derivatives in this framework. This is the reason why they discuss only the first step of Malliavin calculus. On the other hand, they succeeded to deal with some delicate problems (the absolute continuity of the probability law of the solution to stochastic differential equations with Lipschitz continuous coefficients, the domain of stochastic integrals (Itô-Ramer-Skorokhod integrals), etc.). This book focuses on the abstract structure of Dirichlet forms and Malliavin calculus rather than their applications. However, the authors give a lot of exercises and references and they may help the reader to study other topics which are not discussed in this book. Zentralblatt Math, Reviewer: S.Kusuoka (Hongo)

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"This volume contains 15 papers contributed by the participands of the 2nd General AMaMeF conference and Banach Center converence 'Advances in mathematics of finance' organized in Bȩdlewo, Poland from 30th April till 5th May, 2007. AMaMeF (Advances Mathematical Methods of Finance) is a scientific programme of the European Science Foundation for 2005-2010"--Preface (p. 5).